Éamonn Fitzmaurice: Dubs lift the gloom as critical focus switches to Tyrone

Mon, 14 Mar, 2022 - 06:20

WITH weekends of regulation games to go in the Allianz Football League, there are huge talking points across all four divisions.

Monaghan are rallying as always.

Derry dropped their first points of the year.

Cork and Down are staring into the abyss.

Antrim are flying. London have stalled and can Cavan be caught?

In Healy Park yesterday, Dublin got the show back on the road. While they remain rooted to the bottom of Division 1 they will be delighted with the performance and result. They look to have turned the corner. There was much to admire about their first half performance, in particular, especially when taking the context of their first four games of the year into account.

They looked much more like themselves. They were urgent and pacy on the ball and they worked really hard without it. While the returning personnel obviously helped, they have also started to fix some of the structural issues that were causing them so many problems recently.

The silly unforced errors that had crept into their game were vastly reduced. Their own kickout was much better, they had a more solid shape at the back and upfront they were way more threatening than they had been. They forced plenty of turnovers and their workrate upfront meant the yawning gaps that had been appearing at the back are slowly but surely disappearing.

They are once more delaying the opposition and allowing cover to get back. All of this meant that Cian Murphy, Davy Byrne and Mick Fitzsimmons all played really well in the full back line and a total of eight points conceded in nearly 80 minutes of football is good going, especially when it is the All-Ireland champions are providing the opposition.

The return of Cormac Costello gave them better shape and punch upfront. He, along with Ciarán Kilkenny, provided constant moving targets close to goal. They were receiving the ball in the right areas and were able to get runners off them. Static attacks with the endless parabolas of hand passing around the margins were conspicious by their absence.

Seán Bugler was again very effective, this time at centre forward and the more senior players such as Brian Fenton, Niall Scully and John Small all played well. The return of Eoin Murchan and James McCarthy off the bench gave them some impetus in the final quarter when Tyrone threatened a comeback. Donegal is next up in Croke Park on Sunday. Dublin will be stronger again and as I expected all along, all of a sudden they are an item again.

Tyrone continue to flounder. None of this is overly surprising coming off the success of last year, but at this stage of the league they won’t be happy with aspects of their setup. Discipline is certainly becoming a major issue for them. While Pádraig Hampsey was in the sin bin in the first half Dublin made them pay and then when he received his marching orders for a silly yellow card, it robbed his team of an important leader.

In fairness to Tyrone they did up the ante after his dismissal but they had too much to do. All Ireland champions, rightly or wrongly, are under the microscope more than other teams and indiscipline is often punished more severely. The form of many of their key players from last year's success must also be of concern to them. Conor Meyler, Kieran McGeary, Conor McKenna, Peter Harte, Darren McCurry and Cathal McShane are all a bit off it at the moment. They are all showing flashes of their undoubted ability but consistent displays are absent. This isn’t something that can forced but they will all have the Ulster Championship preliminary round against Fermanagh in five weeks in the back of their minds. They will want to be right for that, and they won’t want to have been relegated in the meantime.

DROP CAP

Jack O'Connor will be quite happy with much of Kerry’s performance in tough conditions against seasoned opponents in Tralee on Saturday night. The result means they now have one leg in a league final. I think what will have pleased Jack the most is the test that Kerry got, and passed. Thus far in the league they have a had a lot of it their own way. In particular he will be delighted with how they stood up to Mayo’s physicality late on, when the Connacht men really upped the heat and went after the match once they'd equalised in the 64th minute.

Last weekend this was enough against Armagh but Kerry are a bit further down the road. In this fixture three years ago, with many of the same players on both sides, Mayo prevailed. They dominated Kerry physically that night and a Matthew Ruane goal was the difference. Three years on and Kerry have matured physically and were able to get the job done which will be satisfying within the group.

As they continue to strengthen their panel and make sure he has as many live options as possible come championship, O'Connor's management team will also be satisfied to have got significant minutes into Shane Murphy, Dylan Casey, Graham O'Sullivan, Jack Savage and, in particular, Tony Brosnan. He was superb for most of the game and he expertly dispatched his vital goal in the first half after some excellent approach play from David Clifford and Adrian Spillane. He might mix it up for the next two weekends but Jack would like to get some action into David Moran and Joe O'Connor in the remaining games.

One area that they will look to improve on is their own kickout. They only won 60% of their restarts on Saturday. Yes, conditions were tough but it looked to me to be more of structural and execution issue than a weather-related one. They probably have very little work done on it yet but losing their own kickout was definitely a factor in the Mayo pressure late on when they secured a few restarts in a row to keep Kerry pinned in.

While in the greater scheme of things James Horan won’t be losing any sleep about the result, there will be aspects of the performance that will annoy him and they will look to improve for Tyrone next weekend. They will probably have an item in their video review on conceding scoreable frees late in the game. Some of the fouls, one on Paudie Clifford and the final one on Stephen O'Brien were completely unnecessary.

He will also definitely be disappointed with their shooting when they were trying to win the game, particularly bearing in mind they were playing with a significant breeze. Overall they kicked nine wides but crucially four of them came in that tense end game. Jordan Flynn dropped one short, Paddy Durcan kicked two wides and Lee Keegan saw his effort at an equaliser just tail off at the death. Horan will know to finally get their hands on Sam Maguire this type of profligacy will need to be eliminated.

A further conundrum he may have is where to locate Oisín Mullin, when playing the best teams. To me he is a brilliant half back but Horan has used him in the full back line in big games, where he has struggled. He couldn’t handle David Clifford and he also struggled with Cathal McShane when he was in introduced in last year's All Ireland Final, losing him for McShane’s goal. Horan may have to think about his value to the team further out the field.

As we hurtle towards the end of the league the calculators will be out. To highlight how competitive the fare is across all four divisions no one has reached a league final or been relegated yet. Crucially teams will also be trying to iron out the final creases in their game plans for championship as games run out. Hopefully the weather obliges and we should have a couple of weekends of great football ahead.